Mars, Incorporated has announced it will incorporate recycled polypropylene plastic into the packaging of some of its pet food brands in 2021.

This is an important step in Mars’ progress towards achieving 30 per cent recycled content and 25 per cent less virgin plastic by 2025.

Mars has partnered with SABIC and Huhtamaki, and will use recycled plastic that has been manufactured using an advanced recycling process for its pet food packs, meaning that they won’t feel any different to those made with traditional virgin plastic.

Mars will pilot the recycled pet food packaging in Europe in 2020 and will increase volumes used into 2021, with ambitions to expand the use of recycled content to other brands.

Barry Parkin, Chief Procurement and Sustainability Officer at Mars, Incorporated, said that Mars is committed to addressing the global recycling crisis.

“Plastic packaging littering our land and oceans is not acceptable, and at Mars, we’re committed to helping address this problem. To do this, we need to reduce packaging we don’t need, redesign the remaining packaging to become circular and invest to close the loop to help scale up recycling systems.

“Through our partnership with Huhtamaki and SABIC, we will test-and-learn, progressively scale up recycled plastic content in our packs, and ultimately help drive circular packaging systems.”

The recycled material is certified under the ISCC PLUS (Institute of Sustainability & Carbon Certification) scheme that uses a ‘mass balance’ approach. This widely recognised international sustainability certification scheme verifies the quality and authenticity of the recycled material along the supply chain from feedstock to final product.

The partnership comes as part of Mars’ Sustainable Packaging Plan and ambitions to use 100 per cent reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025. Using advanced recycling technology will be an instrumental part to achieving use of 30 per cent recycled plastics and to reduce virgin plastic use by 25 per cent.

This article was reproduced from Convenience & Impulse Retailing